When you read about the way he lived, it’s amazing that advertising legend Jerry Della Femina is still alive. In an interview on NPR Weekend All Things Considered, July 24, The multi-agency founder reminisced about the days of the Mad Men when you had a bouncy couch in your office and a bottle in your desk. Taking advantage of the AMC series about the life and hungover times of advertising executives in the 1960s, DellaFemina has released an update of his 1970 memoir From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.
In those days when the ad revolution (i.e. the rise of the “creative agency”) met the sexual revolution the ads were outrageous and the Madison Avenue workstyle even more so. Nowadays the ads seem quaint and the antics unspeakable. The annual office contest, excerpted from the book on NRP.com, is gauche if not offensive to even the ambisexual AE in the next cubicle.
Some things about the good old days are better off gone.
